1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems for providing offers to consumers. More particularly, the present invention concerns systems for providing offers to consumers using billing statements.
2. Description of the Related Art
Sellers present offers to consumers in order to sell products and to acquire new customers. For example, a retailer may use newspaper advertisements or mass mailings to offer products to consumers for sale prices. In another example, a representative of a long distance telephone service provider may call a consumer and offer cash in exchange for the consumer's agreement to use the provider's service. Other conventional channels for presenting offers include radio and television advertisements, billboards, and in-store displays.
However, since a typical consumer is inundated with offers received through conventional channels, such offers are rather limited in their ability to receive the consumer's thorough consideration. Moreover, of all the offers presented to the consumer, only a small fraction actually deal with products and/or services in which the consumer is interested. As a result of these factors, most offers presented to consumers through conventional channels are virtually ignored.
Some sellers, realizing that only a small fraction of presented offers will be considered and even a smaller fraction will actually be accepted, try to increase a total number of accepted offers by increasing the total number of offers presented to consumers. This strategy is not acceptable to most sellers because it suffers from the problems described above with respect to offers presented through conventional channels and because it can be quite costly. Additionally, since this strategy results in an increase in the number of offers presented through conventional channels, the already small fraction of these offers which are effectively considered tends to decrease.
In an attempt to address the foregoing, some sellers have employed billing statements as vehicles for presenting offers to consumers. For example, Synapse Group, Inc. of Stamford, Conn. presents offers for magazine subscriptions using materials enclosed with monthly credit card billing statements. This approach presumes that a consumer will pay more attention to items received along with a billing statement than to advertising vehicles such as mass mailings or newspaper advertisements. As a result, it is believed that the approach increases the percentage of offers which are thoroughly considered by consumers.
One shortcoming of the previous approach results from the limited space available for including advertising materials within billing statements. Due to this limitation, offers which can be presented using this approach are limited to a small number of concise, simply explained offers. Accordingly, what is needed is a system allowing sellers to present more offers and additional types of offers, including complex, customized, and dynamically-created offers, to consumers using billing statements.
Moreover, offers presented using billing statements as described above are no more likely than other conventional offers to deal with products or services in which a particular consumer is interested. As a result, such offers are no more likely than conventional offers to be accepted even if thoroughly considered. Therefore, what is also needed is a system providing consumers with increased incentive to accept offers presented using billing statements.